AACME ELEVATE APPLICATION

2026/27 Season Promotional Video (1:53 length)

Stephen Mills Tribute Video (0:49 length)

Stephen Mills on his World Premiere MARIE ANTOINETTE (1:09 length)

Nya’s Journey (1:05 length)

Stephen Mills | Sarah & Ernest Butler Family Fund Artistic Director

Known for his innovative and collaborative choreographic projects, Stephen Mills has created over 60 premieres for Ballet Austin and has works in the repertoires of companies across the United States and around the world. His inaugural season as artistic director in 2000 attracted national attention with his world-premiere production of Hamlet, hailed by Dance Magazine as “… sleek and sophisticated.” The Washington Post recognized Ballet Austin as “one of the nation’s best kept ballet secrets” in 2004 after Mills’ world premiere of The Taming of the Shrew, commissioned by and performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The Company’s first Kennedy Center invitation in January of 2002 was to perform Mills’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Ballet Austin presented a variety of Mills’ works at The Joyce Theater (NYC) in 2005 and returned to the Kennedy Center in collaboration with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet in 2008 and for the Ballet Across America Festival in 2013.  In 2005 after two years of extensive research, Mills led a communitywide human rights collaboration that culminated in the world premiere work Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project (Light). In 2006 Light was awarded the Audrey & Raymond Maislin Humanitarian Award by the Anti-Defamation League. The work made its international debut in September 2013, with performances in three cities across Israel and is the subject of the award-winning documentary film, FINDING LIGHT. In October 2016, Mills led the company through a 16-city tour of the People’s Republic of China, concluding in China’s largest city, Shanghai.

Cookie Ruiz | Executive Director / CEO

Cookie Gregory Ruiz has more than 30 years of experience in the areas of strategic planning, organizational development and non-profit fund-raising/management. Since 2002 she has held the professional designation of Certified Fund Raising Executive (C.F.R.E.) by the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Her community honors include Austin Business Journal’s “Profiles in Power” Award, Leadership Austin’s Polly Scallorn Community Trustee Award, Austin Community Foundation’s Beverly S. Sheffield Award for Excellence as a Nonprofit Executive, The American Red Cross “Clara Barton Medal of Honor,”  Volunteer of the Year for the Austin Independent School District, the Lone Star Girl Scout Council “Women of Distinction” Award, The Junior League of Austin’s Volunteer Extraordinaire Award and is a 2016 Austin Arts Hall of Fame inductee.

Ms. Ruiz served as the city-wide Chair of CreateAustin, a City Council appointee to ImagineAustin’s Citizen’s Advisory Task Force, and is a graduate of the Austin’s City Works Academy. As a graduate of Leadership Austin she served four years on its Board of Directors.

Ms. Ruiz is a member of the International Board of Directors of Tessitura Network, the Board of Directors of Housing Works Austin, the Board of Texans for the Arts, and is a Fellow of The National Arts Strategies International Chief Executive Program.

Ms. Ruiz serves as a speaker, facilitator and presenter for a variety of leadership conferences, including Capacity Interactive, the National Conference on Community Leadership, the National Performing Arts Conference, American for the Arts Annual Convention, National Conference of Dance/USA, The Governor’s Women’s Business Leadership Forum and the Texas Commission on the Arts.

In 1996 Ms. Ruiz joined the staff of Ballet Austin as Development Director, became General Manager in 1997 and Executive Director in 1999.

Michelle Martin | Associate Artistic Director

Michelle Martin had her early dance training at the Alberta Ballet School and her professional performance career spans work with the Alberta Ballet Company, Indianapolis Ballet Theatre, Hartford Ballet and Ballet Austin. Martin began her tenure with Ballet Austin in 1991 as a dancer with the Company and in 1992 she was appointed company rehearsal director and co-director of Ballet Austin Academy. In 1999 she founded Ballet Austin TWO, Ballet Austin’s second company, followed by the Trainee Program (now the Butler Fellowship Program). Martin was appointed Associate Artistic Director in 2000 and also serves as the Faculty Chair of the Academy. Additionally, she stages the work of Stephen Mills for companies across the nation. Beyond her work in the rehearsal studio, Martin has designed education and audience engagement programs as well as written grants for Ballet Austin. She has served on the Texas Commission on the Arts review panel and as a juror for the American Ballet Competition and ADC-IBC. Martin was the 2001 recipient of the Austin- Under-40 award for contributions in the area of Arts and Entertainment.

Eugene Alvarez | Company Manager

With a business degree and a professional dance background, Eugene Alvarez has found his perfect niche at Ballet Austin. While studying at The University of Texas at Austin he took a recreational ballet class with a teacher and, at the time, Artistic Director of Austin Ballet Theater, Stanley Hall. Soon Eugene was supplementing his college studies and UT ballet classes with classes, rehearsals and performances at Austin Ballet Theater. After graduation, degree in hand and only a couple of years into his auditor job at UT, Eugene left the business world for a chance to dance professionally with Ballet Austin. He danced for seven seasons and rose through the ranks to dance principal roles with fellow company members at the time, Stephen Mills and Michelle Martin. After retiring from ballet, Eugene held administrative positions with The Texas HIV Connection and Jackson/Ruiz Salon before being invited back to Ballet Austin by current Artistic Director Stephen Mills. He has been the Company Manager since the fall of 2002 and feels fortunate to be able to use his business background to support his love for the arts.

Christopher Swaim | Rehearsal Director

Christopher Swaim is originally from Bryant, Arkansas, where he began his training with Kirt and Linda Hathaway at the Academy of Ballet Arkansas. He then went on to graduate with distinction from the University of Oklahoma with a B.F.A. in Ballet Pedagogy. Swaim has danced a variety of soloist and principal roles across classical, contemporary, and modern repertory, including works by Stephen Mills, George Balanchine, Twyla Tharp, Justin Peck, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Nicolo Fonte, Amy Seiwert, Ben Stevenson, Miguel Terekhov, Pam Tanowitz, Sidra Bell, and Septime Webre. While at Ballet Austin, he had the pleasure of touring the globe, performing at the Kennedy Center in our nation’s capital with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet and again with Ballet Across America III, and guesting with Ballet Arkansas and Amy Seiwert’s company, Imagery. In May of 2019, he retired from the stage after 15 years with Ballet Austin as Albrecht in Giselle. Swaim teaches in the Ballet Austin Academy and has guest taught across the country.

Alexa Capareda | Rehearsal Director, Ballet Austin TWO and Butler Fellows

Alexa Capareda received her early training at the Philippine High School for the Arts in her native Philippines. After moving to Texas, she trained professionally at Ballet Austin. She continued her studies in Canada at Ecole Superieure de Ballet Contemporain de Montreal before joining Mario Radacovsky’s Balet Bratislava in Slovakia, where she had the privilege of performing Jiri Kylian’s Falling Angels and Six Dances. She began exploring her own choreography before leaving Europe, winning 3rd prize at the 2013 Festival of Choreographic Miniatures in Serbia.

Capareda joined Ballet Austin’s artistic staff and Academy faculty in 2015. As Rehearsal Director for Ballet Austin TWO and the Butler Fellowship Program, she has restaged ballets by Stephen Mills, Nelly van Bommel, Nick Kepley, Thang Dao, and Jimmy Orrante for Ballet Austin TWO, and has created original pieces for Ballet Austin TWO and the Butler Fellowship Program. Maria and the Mouse Deer, her ballet for Ballet Austin TWO based on Philippine folk stories, was awarded a Grants for Arts Projects award from the NEA and received seven B. Iden Payne nominations.

Capareda’s choreography has been commissioned by AABP Boston, SALT Contemporary Dance, tbd. dance collective, and Houston Contemporary. She has presented work at Austin Dance Festival, Barnstorm Dance Festival, and Fusebox Festival. She is an artist and Assistant Director with Performa/Dance and has worked with various Austin entities including Frank Wo/Men, ARCOS, BLiPSWiTCH and Collide Arts. In 2017, Capareda received an Austin Critics Table Award for Excellence as a Dancer. She has a B.A in English and a minor in Theater and Dance from The University of Texas at Austin.